General Authority for Statistics
Saudi government authority responsible for official statistics. It succeeded the Central Department of Statistics and Information, which was made a public authority with its own legal personality in 2015.
Industry: Government statistics | Location: Riyadh, Saudi Arabia | Founded: 1960
About General Authority for Statistics
The General Authority for Statistics, known as GASTAT, is the Saudi Arabian government body responsible for official statistics. Its website describes it as the sole official statistical reference for implementing, supervising and regulating statistical work in the Kingdom, and says it has independent legal personality. It produces social, economic and environmental statistics for policymakers and national development plans.
GASTAT dates Saudi statistical work to 1930. A General Statistics System issued by Royal Decree No. 23 took effect on 1 June 1960 and required ministries to keep statistical departments. In 1995 the Central Department of Statistics moved from the Ministry of Finance to the Ministry of Economy and Planning, and in 2005 it was renamed the Central Department of Statistics and Information. A Royal Order in 2015 turned it into a public authority with financial and administrative independence, and a Cabinet decision the same year approved the regulation that gives it technical supervision of the statistics sector.
The authority is overseen by a board chaired by the Minister of Economy and Planning. Its president, Fahad Aldossari, sits on the board with several ministers, the director of the National Information Center and two statistics experts. A coordinating committee of government entities, headed by the president, coordinates official statistical activity.
Its services include a statistical database, a self-completion platform for statistical surveys and requests for microdata, and it publishes the Saudi Census 2022 statistics and regular price indices. GASTAT says it takes part in bodies such as GCC-Stat, the UN Statistics Division and the OECD, and has memoranda of understanding with agencies in several countries, the World Bank and SESRIC.
In 2026 GASTAT signed a research memorandum with King Saud University on 4 August, was certified as a Great Place To Work on 13 August, and on 16 September reported that the UN Statistics Division had adopted its RAD survey-design tool as an applied model. It hosted the 15th session of the OIC Statistical Committee in Jeddah on 29 and 30 September 2026. Its 15 September release put annual inflation at 1.8 percent for August 2026.
Leadership
- Sarah Al-Suhaimi, Board member; expert in statistics
- David Wayne Kalisch, Board member; expert in statistics